I am a senior editor at Forbes and focus mainly on the business of sports and our annual franchise valuations. I also spend a lot of my time digging into what athletes earn on and off the field of play. I've profiled a bunch of athletes that go by one name: LeBron, Shaq, Danica and others. I also head up our biennial B-School rankings, our list of America's Best Small Companies and our annual features on the Best Places for Business (metros, states and countries). I joined Forbes in 1998 after working 3 years at Financial World magazine.

Baseball's Highest-Paid Players 2014

The $20 million a year salary barrier in baseball used to be a very exclusive club made up predominantly of members of the New York Yankees. Five years ago, four players made at least $20 million in salary, including three Yankees and one Boston Red Sox (Manny Ramirez). But sky-high local cable deals and the lack of a salary cap have combined to fuel a surge in massive contracts in baseball across the country. This season 22 players from 11 different clubs will earn at least $20 million. If you factor in endorsements as well, you won’t find a Yankee among the top eight this year.

The highest-paid player in baseball this season in terms of cash received from salary and endorsements is Ryan Howard of the Philadelphia Phillies. Howard is in the third year of a five-year, $125 million contract extension he signed in 2010. The deal was blasted at the time of the signing for being too rich, and it only looks worse now after Howard hit 25 home runs combined the last two years and missed 173 games due to injuries. Howard remains a popular pitchman despite his struggles on the field. He earns $700,000 annually from memorabilia and endorsement partners like New Balance and Subway.

Howard leads a trio of Phillies with playing salaries of at least $20 million. The Phillies have ramped up payroll in recent years knowing a big payday was on the horizon with a new TV deal. In January, the team signed a 25-year agreement with Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia that begins in 2016. The deal pays $2.5 billion, and the Phillies will also have a 25% equity stake in the RSN bringing the total value of the pact to $5 billion.

Howard and Phillies pitcher Cliff Lee are the only two MLB players scheduled to earn $25 million this year. Lee ranks No. 2 overall for earnings, including endorsements, at $25.2 million. The 2008 Cy Young winner has one of the more unusual endorsement deals in the game. He signed a three year sponsorship deal with Audubon, Pa.-based waste management firm J.P. Mascaro & Sons when he joined the Phillies in 2011. The garbage hauler put Lee’s image on the side of its trucks in the Philadelphia area. The company exercised its option to extend the deal into 2014 with the lefty pitcher. Lee makes an estimated $200,000 annually off the field.

Howard and Lee are like almost all major leaguers in that the vast majority of their earnings are from their playing salaries. Baseball’s top 10 earners make $235 million in playing salary and less than $10 million combined from endorsements. The NBA has 10 players earning at least $4 million annually from endorsements and the NFL has five players at that level by our count. The only MLB player making more than $4 million off the field in the U.S. is Derek Jeter (the Yankees shortstop didn’t make the top earnings cutoff due to his $12 million playing salary in 2014).

Baseball remains a wildly popular sport, but its stars are largely on a local level as far as Madison Avenue is concerned. It’s rare for baseball players to nab spots in national ad campaigns. Meanwhile, Nike is splashing LeBron James and Kobe Bryant all over the globe in an effort to see more sneakers and apparel. Their respective paychecks reflect that difference.

The Yankees of course have not become paupers even with their short-lived attempt to keep payroll under $189 million this year to save on luxury tax payments. The Yankees still have four players set to earn $20 million this year in salary and a fifth (Alex Rodriguez) serving a season long suspension for violating baseball’s drug policy. Yankees rank No. 9 (Masahiro Tanaka at $23.5 million) and No. 10 (CC Sabathia at $23.4 million) among the highest-paid players, including endorsements.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have five players set to earn at least $20 million this season led by Zack Grienke at $24 million. Grienke does almost nothing off the field in terms of endorsements and ranks No. 7 overall with earnings of $24.05 million. This year the Dodgers ended the Yankees 15-year run as the team with the highest payroll on opening day.

The Dodgers lost an MLB-record $81 million last year as they doubled payroll under new owners Guggenheim Baseball. Like the Phillies, the Dodgers knew a huge TV cash influx was coming. The team signed a 25-year, $8.35 billion deal with Time Warner CableTime Warner Cable that kicks off this season. TWC will pay the Dodgers $210 million this season, more than four times what the team generated from TV last season.

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